So which of those descriptions do you dispute? Once again based off the old testament.

A lot of the stories that would lead him to generalize like that are highly circumstantial. Taking them out of context it's easy to come up with those conclusions, but in context they all really stem from God being less forgiving in the old testament.

If you could attribute specific happenings to the attributes I could go through on a case by case basis, but as it is I'm not going to try to sort out every instance that could be conceived a specific way and try to sort it out.

The one example that is easy to point out is God being fillicidal. God told Abraham to kill his son as a test of faith, which seems fillicidal, but he also stopped Abraham before he did it.

'doombunny3' said:

I don't get why atheists are atheists. You have nothing to lose by believing.

You have three things to lose by believing:

1. A lot of time and effort. If you're purely theistic, rather than religious, then the time thing might not be so true for you, but it takes more effort to think something than to not think it. There are some people for whom believing in a god takes less effort than the alternative, but those people have a deeper problem: they need to learn that it's OK not to be able to explain something (yet).
2. The drive to answer the great unanswered questions of the world. Why try and figure out what the best way is to live, or how the universe works, if you think you've already got the answer (in one convenient God-shaped bundle).
3. Intellectual consistency. If you believe in God, why don't you believe in fairies, or homeopathy?

1) If Christ isn't resurrected, we've wasted our lives. Definitely. But yeah, certainly, if God's infinite, then the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know!
2) That's sort of the point. If you're not trying to figure out the best way to live, what's the next logical step? Yes, just like there are non-believers who aren't driven to seek the "great unanswered questions of the world", there are believers I guess that aren't driven to the next logical step - if these things are answered.
3) Insisting that belief in God is equal to not being intelligent doesn't necessarily make it that way... again you will find a range of very little to very much intelligence in both believers and unbelievers alike... in fact, for many, God is the absolutely most logical conclusion, whereas fairies might not be. Is it really because they are less intelligent then you or other unbelievers?

i did not study religion sciences
but i beleive god exists
i can not see god
but i feel HIM

'tstrimple' said:

So which of those descriptions do you dispute? Once again based off the old testament.

A lot of the stories that would lead him to generalize like that are highly circumstantial. Taking them out of context it's easy to come up with those conclusions, but in context they all really stem from God being less forgiving in the old testament.

One could add to this the story of Jacob (Israel), which can be somewhat freely transcribed in 3 sentences like this:
I like that bugger, he really had the nerve to struggle with me (Me!!!). Admitted, he's been lazy all his life, and he cheated on his brother, he cheated on his father, he cheated on... but oh heck I just like him, so he'll have a long and successful life and he will be the patriarch of my people. But then, on a second thought... you know, I'm the alpha wolf here... and that guy... ok, I'll just cripple his leg to show him who's the Lord, that'll do.

You'll have to admit that Dawkins' quote, although somewhat provocative, is not entirely unjustified in such contexts, of which many exist in the old testament.

You'll have to admit that Dawkins' quote, although somewhat provocative, is not entirely unjustified in such contexts, of which many exist in the old testament.

Well if you judged almost anything the same way, you could say pretty much every person, empire, belief structure, etc is horrible.

You look at two people like Einstein and Oppenheimer, essentially good guys, but you take them solely in the context that they created a device to completely annihilate two japanese cities to dominate an enemy who executed attacks on American soil, and you could argue that they were unjust, unforgiving, blood thirsty, racist, malevolent, vindictive, pestilential, sadomasochistic, mass murderers.

'samoth' said:

You'll have to admit that Dawkins' quote, although somewhat provocative, is not entirely unjustified in such contexts, of which many exist in the old testament.

Well if you judged almost anything the same way, you could say pretty much every person, empire, belief structure, etc is horrible.

You look at two people like Einstein and Oppenheimer, essentially good guys, but you take them solely in the context that they created a device to completely annihilate two japanese cities to dominate an enemy who executed attacks on American soil, and you could argue that they were unjust, unforgiving, blood thirsty, racist, malevolent, vindictive, pestilential, sadomasochistic, mass murderers.

And this is why you can't have intelligent conversations about religion with zealots. Irrational defense of every facet of their religion. I'm not sure how anyone familiar with the old testament could NOT find God to be petty and vindictive. God has very human traits for for being an all-powerful omni-potent being.

3) Insisting that belief in God is equal to not being intelligent doesn't necessarily make it that way...

I wasn't insisting any such thing. Take my question at face value.

in fact, for many, God is the absolutely most logical conclusion, whereas fairies might not be.Could you please explain the logical argument that causes people to conclude that God exists, and also demonstrate how that same argument cannot be used to support the existence of fairies or the efficacy of homeopathy?

Bear in mind that in order to turn a non-believer or an undecided-believer into a believer, it would need to begin only with premises that such a person would hold true. So for example, one argument in favour of God that doesn't work for fairies or homeopathy is: The bible says so. But that uses the premise that the bible is infallible, which a non-believer or undecided-believer wouldn't accept.

And this is why you can't have intelligent conversations about religion with zealots. Irrational defense of every facet of their religion. I'm not sure how anyone familiar with the old testament could NOT find God to be petty and vindictive. God has very human traits for for being an all-powerful omni-potent being.

Thank you for insulting me rather than constructing an argument against me. It was awful kind of you. It's good to know that we can conduct ourselves so maturely. Kudos to you for sourcing your accusations that God is "petty and vindictive," as I asked earlier so I could properly form a response to them instead of just throwing out more out of context assumptions of the worst case.

Just out of curiosity, how much of the bible have you read? It must be a good amount to make such sweeping accusations.

You can't prove a negative - If anyone shows me good evidence that god does exist, then I'll believe that she does!

'way2lazy2care' said:

'samoth' said:

You'll have to admit that Dawkins' quote, although somewhat provocative, is not entirely unjustified in such contexts, of which many exist in the old testament.

Well if you judged almost anything the same way, you could say pretty much every person, empire, belief structure, etc is horrible.

You look at two people like Einstein and Oppenheimer, essentially good guys, but you take them solely in the context that they created a device to completely annihilate two japanese cities to dominate an enemy who executed attacks on American soil, and you could argue that they were unjust, unforgiving, blood thirsty, racist, malevolent, vindictive, pestilential, sadomasochistic, mass murderers.

And this is why you can't have intelligent conversations about religion with zealots. Irrational defense of every facet of their religion. I'm not sure how anyone familiar with the old testament could NOT find God to be petty and vindictive. God has very human traits for for being an all-powerful omni-potent being.

It's even worse than that. The old testament is one of the vilest pieces of literature ever written. The amount of pettiness, violence and immorality is staggering. We are talking stuff like rape, incest, infanticide, molestation, slavery, performed by those considered as righteous.


I cannot fathom how anyone can hold the old testament as holy writ and can consider himself a moral person. Is it ignorance of the actual content? Is it intentional self-delusion? Or can it be that they know what the testament is really talking about so they deliberately deceive other people?


In any case, this is pretty much as immoral as it gets.